Today — right on the edge — wave, wind and visibility.
Sources & confidence
Compiled by the spearo sea-state engine · How it works →
The verdict comes from seven water factors and hard safety gates — not ten tabs. Go or stay.
Our own model
Our own forecast engine — not a third-party widget. It weighs these water factors into one go-or-stay verdict for this coast; the 0–10 dial is that verdict, read out as a number.
Safety gates
It all folds into a single 0–10 score and one verdict: go or stay.
A forecast, not a guarantee — the sea has the last word.
Where to get in, where to hunt
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Wind, wave and the swell windows — when to go and the best hours.
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Visibility and what drives it — post-storm clearing, river plume, temperature and the thermocline.
spearo.app folds wind, wave, swell period, visibility, tides, water temperature and risk into a single verdict — go to the spot or not. It computes 7 days ahead from open marine models (Open-Meteo, IPMA), with no sign-up and no accounts. Built for solo spearfishing off the rocks, where any mistake costs dearly.
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See all spotsRelief and bottom type, tides, and the depths of each spot.
The models set the window. Whether you go in is read only at the water: count the sets, watch the surge on the entry. If in doubt, you don't get in.
Scouted entries, coloured by today. The colour is the sea state at the spot, not a guarantee: the wash and a slippery entry you judge on site.
Open the seafloor mapThe bar where the Niagara River fans into Lake Ontario, about 8 m over gravel and rock. Sharp change from river to lake water; visibility can be excellent on the river side and murky a hundred metres out.
Google MapsShoal in the lower Niagara below Fort Niagara, about 6 m. The river runs green and clear here and the current is strong and constant - a drift dive from a boat. New York bans spearfishing, so this is a dive site only.
Google MapsCameras, map and reference — to hand as you come up.
SpainSOLO is the biggest risk: underwater you can black out from lack of oxygen silently and fatally, with no one around. Solo is never truly «safe». Below are the best weather windows; carry a buoy, tell someone your plan and exit time, and any doubt — don't go.
US spearfishing law is state-by-state. License, spearable species, powerhead rules and distances vary; federal sanctuaries (Gray's Reef, the Keys, Flower Garden Banks) ban spearfishing. Always confirm with the state agency and local ordinances.
At Youngstown the legal answer is short and the diving answer is interesting. New York prohibits taking fish by spear or speargun in all of its fresh water — ECL § 11-1301(1)(a) permits only angling, and (1)(c) limits spear and speargun to the marine and coastal district, which is Atlantic and tidal water and does not include the Niagara. What you get instead is the Lower Niagara at Fort Niagara: green, clear, strongly flowing river water, navigable and dived below the falls, with two drift sites in 6-8 m and its own NWS zone.
Two sites, both drifts, both defined by flow rather than depth. Rumsey Shoal sits below Fort Niagara in the river proper; the Niagara Bar is the transition where river water meets lake water, and the visibility difference across that line can be dramatic. Both are dive sites only — New York's spear ban covers the whole river inside the state.
| Spot | Type | Depth | Level | Access | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rumsey Shoal | Reef | 4-6.3 m | Advanced drift · dive only, NY spear ban | Live boat, drift | Shoal in the lower Niagara below Fort Niagara, about 6 m. The river runs green and clear here and the current is strong and constant — a drift dive from a boat. New York bans spearfishing, so this is a dive site only. |
| Niagara Bar | Reef | 5-7.8 m | Advanced drift · dive only, NY spear ban | Boat | The bar where the Niagara fans into Lake Ontario, about 8 m over gravel and rock. A sharp change from river to lake water: visibility can be excellent on the river side and murky a hundred metres out. |
No. ECL § 11-1301(1)(a) states that no fish, other than migratory food fish of the sea in the marine and coastal district, shall be taken except by angling; § 11-1301(1)(c) permits taking fish by spear or speargun in the marine and coastal district only, and requires a speargun to be submerged when used there. NYSDEC defines that district as the Atlantic within 3 miles of the coastline and all other tidal waters, including the Hudson upstream to the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. The Niagara River is not tidal water and is not in the district. DEC's own methods list — angling, ice fishing, bowfishing, taking baitfish, fish traps, nets, dip nets — does not include spearing at all, and the one place DEC uses its definition of spear is for frogs. The honest caveat: 6 NYCRR Part 10 could not be read during this research, so the no-exception claim rests on the statute and DEC's methods list.
Below the falls the Niagara is navigable and people dive it, and the water is quite unlike Lake Erie or Lake Ontario — green, clear, and moving hard all the time. Rumsey Shoal, below Fort Niagara in about 6 m, is a drift dive from a boat and nothing else; the current is strong and constant rather than tidal, so there is no slack window to wait for. The Niagara Bar, where the river fans out into Lake Ontario in about 8 m over gravel and rock, is the interesting boundary: the change from river water to lake water is sharp, and visibility can be excellent on the river side and murky a hundred metres out into the lake. Plan both from a live boat with a flag, and treat the flow as the primary hazard.
33 CFR 165.902 establishes a safety zone in the Lower Niagara River at Niagara Falls. The whirlpool reach is defined by coordinate; the upper reach is defined by landmark. It is carried as a hard zone. This matters at Youngstown because the town sits at the river mouth and the natural upstream progression from Fort Niagara leads toward exactly that water. Check the current eCFR text before planning anything above the fort. Two other New York items belong here: lake sturgeon is threatened, so fishing for it including catch and release is illegal and possession is prohibited; and a northern snakehead caught while angling may not be released — it must be killed immediately and reported to DEC.
Lake Ontario behaves differently from Erie: ice forms only in the bays and on the eastern shallows from January to March, while the open water hardly freezes at all. The season here runs May to November — a month longer at the back end than on Erie. The Lower Niagara has its own NWS marine zone, LOZ030, separate from the lake, which is the right forecast to read for a river dive. There is no tide; the Great Lakes astronomical range is a few centimetres and NOAA publishes no predictions for these stations. On water level, note a local trap: the nearest usable CO-OPS gauge is Olcott, 9052076, about 28 km away, because the Ashland Avenue and Niagara Intake stations sit above the falls and do not apply to this point at all.
This is a current dive, so the kit list is about the flow rather than the cold: a live boat, a surface marker, a flag, and a plan that assumes you will not swim back upstream. Thermal protection follows the season — the open lake stays cold well into summer and the river is fed by it. Because New York authorises no spear anywhere in fresh water, leave the gun at home; the lawful rough-fish outlet in this state is a bow, and only for carp, from 15 May to 30 September. For the record on future planning: ECL § 11-1301(1)(c) is marked repealed as of 1 June 2029, which changes the marine rule rather than the freshwater answer.
No. New York bans taking fish by spear or speargun in all fresh water; the permission in ECL § 11-1301(1)(c) applies only to the marine and coastal district, which does not include the Niagara.
Yes. Below the falls the river is navigable and dived. Rumsey Shoal below Fort Niagara is about 6 m and the Niagara Bar about 8 m; both are boat-supported drifts.
Strong and constant — it is river flow, not tide, so there is no slack to wait for. Dive from a live boat with a marker and a flag.
It is the boundary where river water fans into the lake. Visibility can be excellent on the river side and murky a hundred metres out.
Yes. 33 CFR 165.902 sets a safety zone in the Lower Niagara at Niagara Falls, with the whirlpool reach defined by coordinate and the upper reach by landmark. Check the current text.
LOZ030, the Lower Niagara River — a separate NWS marine zone from Lake Ontario itself.
Olcott, 9052076, about 28 km away. The Ashland Avenue and Niagara Intake stations sit above the falls and do not apply here.
May to November. Ice forms only in the bays and eastern shallows from January to March; the open water hardly freezes.
Portugal
